Carbon capture and storage – what is the real goal?

Carbon capture and storage does not produce carbon, but it does succeed for governments and industry. The pros and cons of reducing your personal carbon footprint. How can we best address Australia’s land clearing loopholes?

Carbon capture and storage is not the solution

Kevin Morrison has succinctly summarized the carbon capture and storage (CCS) trick being played on us by the fossil fuel industry and governments around the world, including our own:

‘…global energy-related CO2 emissions have increased by 410 million tonnes (mton) to reach a new record of 37.4 billion tonnes in 2023. Given that it has taken about fifty years to capture less than 10 million tons of CO2 per year, it will take a heroic engineering effort to meaningfully capture the 37 billion tons of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere each year. reduction, and a huge amount of money to build the CCS facilities. Chevron and his Gorgon CCS partners have invested more than AU$3.2 billion in the Gorgon CCS project to bury a total of approximately 9.5 million tonnes of CO2, equating to the cost of AU$336.8 to bury one tonne of CO2. Apply that to the 37 billion tons of CO2 in energy-related emissions per year, and the costs are in the trillions.”

…but oil and gas companies continue to promote the fantasy

Despite the evidence, whatever they are fully aware offossil fuel companies have played a smart game with CCS. Publicly they big note their ‘successes’ with CCS so far, even though not one CCS project worldwide has ever achieved its CO2 capture target. And they scream about it future promise not only for their own activities, but also for transport and industry in general (‘see how the work we do in CCS will help others’). In this deception they were assisted by some American majors media companies such as the New York Times, Reuters and the Washington Post, and, as unlikely as it seems, even National Public Radio (NPR).

But behind closed doors, oil and gas companies are lobbying governments hard for subsidies for further CCS development and payments for every tonne of CO2 removed from the atmosphere, while preventing governments from setting quantified carbon capture targets by claiming that the technology is not. yet well developed enough for such a step.

CCS consistently fails for society, but is a winner for governments and fossil fuel companies. It’s hard not to conclude that this is the real goal is is met.

Personal tricks for the ecological footprint

CCS is just one of a long list of climate action hoaxes, including: plant billions of trees, buy carbon offsets, stop eating meat, buy local, eliminate air travel, recycle plastic, etc. That doesn’t mean we don’t plant plants need to plant more. more trees, eating less meat, supporting local producers, avoiding plastic, repairing and recycling things, having more virtual meetings, traveling by train, etc. There are excellent reasons why we should do all this, but still make a serious contribution contributing to climate change management is not one of them.

Not one of them individually, nor all of them together, will solve our global warming problem. Nor will they solve any of the other serious environmental problems we face in biodiversity, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, ocean pollution, etc. etc. etc.

Measure your personal carbon footprint if you want and take action to reduce it, but don’t be fooled into thinking that making everyone do this is the silver bullet to global warming. Apart from everything else, even if we could get everyone to do it just out of the goodness of their hearts, it would take more time than we have.

Governments and multinational companies have the responsibility and resources to make the changes needed at national and international levels to combat climate change. However, at any given time, sitting ministers, board members and CEOs have short-term self-preservation priorities and no concern for the long-term well-being of their country or company, let alone humanity as a whole .

As a result, they promote a host of do-it-yourself tricks all designed to avoid meaningful, collective, political, industrial and economic action to rapidly reduce and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. Their goal is to shift the responsibility for taking action from themselves to individuals, by convincing the public that a) multiple small actions to reduce each individual’s carbon footprint will do the job (and they will don’t do that), and/or b) industry and governments are in control (they are not), and/or c) there is no need for the public to be more concerned and politically active (they are ).

So please continue to do what is right in your personal life, for whatever reason, but also do what you can to promote the rapid political and economic changes at the societal level that are absolutely essential.

Rising electric car sales are spiraling out of control thanks to public chargers

One in three new cars in China is an electric car. Great for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, not so useful if you have to queue for hours at charging stations along the highways. This is especially a problem on holidays and when people flock to a special event. The US faces similar problems.

However, in terms of EVs per public charging station, this is the case bar chart below shows that both China and the US are much better supplied than Australia. Our friends across the ditch are even worse off. Yes, we should encourage the sale of electric vehicles, but we should avoid charging problems that discourage potential buyers, Australian governments should also ensure there are enough public charging stations.

Land clearing in Northern Australia – legal or not?

Australia’s federal structure means that there are multiple laws at state, territory and national levels relating to the protection of the environment. A study of logging of 1.6 million hectares of native forest and forest vegetation in Northern Australia (roughly north of the line between Noosa and Shark Bay) found that 65% may not have complied with at least one piece of legislation, most commonly the Commonwealth Environment Protection Act and biodiversity conservation (EPBC).

Conversely, the majority of clearing was compliant with at least one piece of legislation, but of this only a fifth was explicitly approved, with the remainder permitted under various exceptions. Queensland has been responsible for 80% of Australia’s deforestation over the past 40 years and in this study, 75% of Queensland’s deforestation was allowed through exemptions within relevant state legislation.

The agricultural sector is mainly responsible for the lack of compliance, which is not surprising when 25% of farmers have never heard of the EPBC Act and more than 80% do not understand their obligations under the Act.

The authors of the report recommend the following:

• Better alignment of laws at Commonwealth, State and Territory levels, and with Australia’s international obligations on deforestation.
• Informing landowners about their legal obligations.
• Stronger protection for endangered species in the EPBC Act against the cumulative impacts of multiple land clearing events.
• Incentives for landowners to prevent land clearing, especially clearing ‘exempt’ areas where vegetation regrowth occurs. (The temptation for the authors to actually recommend abolishing statutory exemptions was tempered by previous experiences where anticipated legislative changes gave rise to ‘anticipatory land clearing’.)
• Public availability of national land clearing and regrowth mapping data.

By way of background, the EPBC Act has been reviewed over the past five years, starting with a comprehensive independent review of the Act’s operation by Graeme Samuel, who found it to be seriously unfit for purpose and made a series of strong recommendations. The Morrison government was behind Samuel’s report and it was hoped that the new Labor government would take a more urgent and ‘protective’ approach than its predecessor. However, the past two and a half years have not justified that optimism and we are still waiting for the government’s final intentions, even if the indications are not promising.

Cats and birds

During my recent month in Britain, I noticed that there are many more domestic cats roaming the streets than in Australia. From cursory research, little effort has been made in Britain to encourage or, better yet, require cat owners to keep ‘Snowy’, ‘Sooty’ and ‘Tabby’ indoors.

As a follow-up to my holiday stories, perhaps Saint Francis of Assisi told the birds to look out for cats when he preached to them, recorded in the image below from the 13th century.^e century Bardi Altarpiece in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. Whatever he said, they watch intently.